Abstract

This study surveyed ethical decision making among 53 school psychologists practicing in a public school district. It surveyed the school psychologists' preferred solutions to ethical dilemmatic vignettes, as well as the primary reason for their ethical decision. In addition, this study explored the extent to which gender, years of experience, and hours of ethics training impacted subjects' decision making, and it evaluated their perceived seriousness of the dilemma, frequency of the dilemma, and overall confidence in decision making. Results indicated no consistency among subjects' responses when faced with decision alternatives, and no consistency among subjects' reported reasoning for their decision alternative. The variability between subjects with regard to gender, years of experience, and hours of ethics training was considered significant on three vignettes. In addition, a mild positive correlation was observed between subjects' perceived severity on one of the vignettes and the frequency with which they had encountered a similar dilemma in their practice